Volga Bulgarian-Permic linguistic contact: Mutual influences on morphology

Julian Kreidl

doi:10.3765/ptu.v6i1.5053

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that three morphological (morphosyntactic) features in Udmurt, Komi, Volga Bulgarian and Chuvash show mutual influence between the Proto-Permic and Volga Bulgarian languages in the Volga-Kama area in the late first millennium CE: First, the formal identity of the Permic accusative and 3sg possessive suffixes which does not have parallels in Uralic but in Turkic. Second, the Volga Bulgarian and Chuvash plural marker -sem, which is unknown from other Turkic languages. Third, the prohibitive particle an in Chuvash, which does not have cognates in Turkic and is loaned from Proto-Permic.

Highlights

In the late 1st millennium CE, speakers of Volga Bulgarian and Permic were in close contact, with Rédei, Róna-Tas 1982 and 1983 showing that lexical borrowing happened in both directions
In the course of the following pages, I want to draw attention to three features which are common to Permic and Oghur (Volga Bulgarian and Chuvash) but are atypical for either Uralic or Turkic more broadly, and could be due to Volga Bulgarian-Permic linguistic contact
This is an important observation and contrasts with the situation in Oghur Turkic, because (Proto-)Turkic *-lAr, *-(A)n, *-s, *-z would not yield ø in Volga Bulgarian and Chuvash, a sound change which could subsequently cause speakers to introduce a new plural morpheme

Summary

Introduction

In the late 1st millennium CE, speakers of Volga Bulgarian and Permic were in close contact, with Rédei, Róna-Tas 1982 and 1983 showing that lexical borrowing happened in both directions. Erdal 1993: 88 takes up the ideas of Benzing 1959: 721-722 and Doerfer 1996: 37 that the Volga Bulgarian (and Chuvash) plural suffix may have originally been a noun, which could explain the odd features of the plural, including both the dative-accusative ne (instead of -e) and the missing vowel harmony: If we assume that *sem – regardless of its origin and exact phonetic shape – meant something like ‘sum, number, entirety’, the starting point would be a compound genitive, e.g., *mesǰid semi ‘the entirety of mosque(s)’. The most likely origin is Benzing’s proposal of connecting the

13 Luutonen 1999

Conclusion

28 Csúcs 2005

Literature